You Always Were
by Animiamy
Summary: After the events of 'Resistance', Helen and Nikola are alone in his lab. So many things have been left unsaid...now it's time for those things to come out. You can't hold in your feelings forever... Missing scene from Season 4 Episode 5.


**A/N: Hello all you readers! This is my first Teslen fanfic that I've published, so be kind! The story takes place right after the events of 'Resistance'. I hope that you enjoy and remember to click the adorable little review button at the bottom (as always!) if you have a chance; reviews mean the world to me! Enjoy! **

"Well, a mostly successful end to a very long day, assuming you exclude my life altering device that took me months to create being reduced shambles… You know, you two should break into my facility more often; we do end up having the most exhilarating adventures." Ignoring Helen's death glare, he turned to his young protégé. "Do you not agree, young Heanrich?"

Henry turned towards the incredibly exasperating genius with a look of distain and disbelief. "Right, cause I forgot this was all about you, and not about the millions of lives that could've ended today. Nah, let's forget about them because you had a good day. Just excuse me genius, for my momentary lapse in thinking that this didn't all have to do with you."

"Yes, well, everyone makes mistakes." Nikola replied airily.

"You know, after hundreds of years, one might assume you've grasped sarcasm by now." Henry responded, a twinge of bitterness in his voice towards the incorrigible vampire.

"Please Heanrich, I've been using sarcasm since before you were even _thought of_ my little wolfboy." The vampire replied without skipping a beat.

"Ya, well, nice try; but I wasn't thought of." Henry said pursing his lips, looking up from his tablet.

Nikola's head lolled to the side and he gave his trademark smirk at Henry.

"All right wolfboy, why don't you give Mommy and Daddy some time alone to discuss grown up issues that are inappropriate for innocent ears such as yours." He got up fixing his jacket, pointedly staring at Henry, who glanced at Magnus She nodded, still not even looking t Nikola, her arms crossed so tightly they appeared to be welded together.

Henry smirked and left the room, calling over to Magnus: "I'm gonna finish up some stuff in Vlad's lab. I'll radio you when I'm ready to go."

But Helen wasn't really listening. Now they were alone, they could finally go back to normal, stoop dancing around the huge black cloud that had descended on the two old friends. She turned towards Nikola, her eyes flashing with betrayal. After a moment and a slight cock of Nikola's head, she lost it.

"Really Nikola!" She shouted at the top of her lungs, "How could you betray me like this? Now? When I need your help more than ever and you suddenly decide I'm not good enough for you and you'll just switch sides?"

"Hel-len!" He said, drawing her name out, "You've always been good enough for me." he said looking down and his hands, which were once again making a steeple with his pointer fingers; a quirk he'd developed when trying to appear calm.

H: She took a few strides closer to him and, still yelling, slightly softer this time, replied, "You know, I always knew I would lose respect, lose funding, lose friends. But I **never, ever **thought that I would lose you."

"Oh come now Helen! You haven't lost me, I'm just working from the inside rather than being blackballed by every corporation in the UN." He replied with a sigh, eyes widening.

Helen shook her head angrily. "I've _always _been there for you Nikola, back at Oxford, even now I always come for you!" She turned away from him. "That day, when you realized what you'd become, what your lineage was. I was the only one who was there. When you were the one who was alone and needed comfort, needed someone to listen, needed someone who gave a damn, **I was there**!" She turned back and Nikola could see there were tears in her eyes, a rare occurrence to say the least. What was left of the vampire's smirk dissipated into a sober look of shame. He couldn't look at her. If he did, he'd fall apart.

She shook her head and looked to the sky as if the answer to her problems, why her heart that was slowly breaking into shards of discarded glass on the floor, would be somewhere up there.

Nikola met her eyes. In them she could see he could see them slowly dying, losing their light as he recalled the memory so clearly in his genius mind. "Helen…" he began, his voice wavering, despite his attempts to keep it level.

"I never left your side for 13 days. I refused to leave; even when you begged me to go because you were **afraid** of what you had become, and what you could do. But I couldn't leave. Not when…" She turned away again and took a couple of steps towards the other end of the lab, her stilettos echoing in the silence. Her arms had dropped to her sides. She smoothed down her hair, trying to get a hold on herself.

He heard her take a deep breath and when she spoke again, her voice was quieter. She knew if she raised her voice, it would crack. "I've always been there for you Nikola – whenever you needed me, and when you didn't need me. But I suppose that doesn't mean anything to you. I was just another person for you to use. I as foolish to think otherwise." She turned to face him from about 8 feet away from where he stood, his arms that had been crossed, dropped to the side of his body. Helen tried to picture this as the closest she would ever get to him again. She couldn't. She couldn't live 200 more years without him. This was a pain she didn't know how to heal. She averted his eyes, she knew if she looked at them her heart would start to hurt - like the pain no physical injury could ever mimic. She closed her eyes, trying to prevent the tears from spilling over as she walked past Nikola and towards the door. A she passed him, he grabbed her shoulders and directed her body towards him. His eyes were cast downward, and she couldn't see his face.

He took a steadying breath. Finally, after another lifetime, he spoke. "Remember back at _Oxford_ the moment you realized you couldn't help John? That second when you discovered that he wouldn't change, not for you, not for anybody? Do you remember Helen?"

She turned her head to the right of his head to avoid having to look at him, swallowing hard, her lips in a tight line.

"It was late at night, and there was a terrible storm outside. I was our private lab working and then, suddenly, you came running in, dripping wet, and stopped short at the table. I scolded you for being out so late until I looked up and saw your face. Your beautiful face, Helen, broken to pieces. I took one look at you and I walked round to your side of the table and all you said was: I can't help, can I Nikola? And at that you collapsed into my arms, sobbing and screaming and I sat there on the floor with you when you couldn't bring yourself to stand any longer. I sat with you, I held you as your sobs racked your exhausted body all night and all morning of the next day. We layed there, on the ground in our lab until you finally had given the last of yourself to John Druitt and you collapsed in sleep. I stayed up, all night in that same spot, holding you while you slept, making sure you knew that I was there. We stayed on the ground for 3 days until I moved us to the living room. Where we stayed for 4 days and 3 more nights. I didn't leave you then Helen. I wouldn't leave you now."

They finally made eye contact with each other and together their hearts broke. They were raw, stripped of any secrets around each other, only each other, and no one else. The tears in Helen's eyes finally, silently, painfully spilled over and he could see the devastation of losing him in her exquisite, heartbroken face. She had lost everyone, he was all she had left. And he didn't know how long she could deny these feelings he knew she had deep down for him. Nikola couldn't bear to see her in so much pain, knowing that he had caused it. Helen was his everything. And he was hers. She saw in his eyes the anguish had kept well hidden, the sense of failure, the heartbreak, all the years they had spent together. All that in one dive into his liquid eyes. She knew Nikola loved her, and that made it so much harder. They were all that as left. Just the two of them. And now they were on different sides of a war.

Neither of the spoke. They just stared at one another, and in that moment, and understanding of everything passed between them. All the pain, the want, the apologies, the need for each other in their lives. They didn't have to say a word. But they knew.

They were aware of how close they were now, only about 1 foot apart from each other, so close but so far. At some point during his story, Nikola had dropped his hands from her shoulders. He now raised his arms just a minute amount, knowing she needed it as much as he did. She took one more look into his eyes and they collapsed into each other's arms as they had done many times, many years ago. Helen had tear silently drifting down her cheeks and Nikola tried to catch them on his fingers delicately, stroking her face with one soft hand, and caressing her back with the other. Helen was holding on to him for dear life, one hand in his short black hair, and one drifting down his neck to his back. She buried her head into his shoulder and inhaled deeply, breathing in his scent that had become so comforting, so familiar. He turned his head and put his head in the crick of her neck, connecting their skin as he moved his forehead up her neck until they were eye to eye again, but still in a tight embrace.

"I'll never leave you Helen, I promise." He said it with absolute certainty, it was impossible to doubt.

She nodded. She slowly disentangled herself from Nikola's body and looked him straight in the eye. "I have faith in you. I have faith in us. We're going to make it through…we always do." Helen's walkie talkie went off as did Nikola's. Henry had finished his work and was ready to leave for the Old City sanctuary. Nikola bristled and muttered a few choice words about Helen's taste in staff in Serbian for being disrupted. Helen chuckled softly. He had forgotten he had taught her his language all those years ago at Oxford. He opened his mouth, but Helen raised a hand stopping him and shaking her head.

"On my way Henry", Helen said into the walkie. She turned to leave, but before she reached the doorway, Nikola had blocked her path and took her once again, in his arms. "I'll always be here when you need me.

"As am I", she said, her voice almost at a whisper, as her head once more fell to the crick of his neck. "I'm not sure if I could actually handle losing you."

"I know…" he said softly.

"Be in touch Nikola," she half warned, have pleaded.

"I promise", he responded, his trademark grin starting to reappear on his face. And with one last smile, she was gone, disappearing down the corridor.

She was in the car on the way home, she sure the mini sculpture of the rift node – a parting gift from Nikola that she had found in her purse was flashing in morose code. _I'll always be here_.

_I know_, she thought to herself, glancing out the window wistfully at his top security prison. _You always were. You always will be._

**A/N: I hope you liked this cute little fluff piece and if you want me to write more Teslen fics or make a sequel of the next time the Sanctuary team encounters Mr. Tesla, please tell me by reviews! Thanks for reading!  
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